This has been coming for a long time, and, as marketeers are fond of
saying: The Time Has Arrived! The ladies of Melbourne's favorite
touring trio of DC rock dudes has finally shaken off the, y'know,
artistic ambitions of their early incarnation, following up their
unfunny heavy-metal collaboration with The Fucking Champs, Trans
Champs, by finally making a record that conjugates with the kind
of comedy they'd previously just pashed. O, the irony. Fitting in
well amongst the euro-electro old-skoolist acid-pop keytone
revivalism of Crossover and Miss Kittin and Fischerspooner,
TA,Trans Am's sixth album, is an outing that's easy and sleazy
and cheesy fo sheezy, their formerly anarchist evocations of archaic
electronics now gussied up into a big and bright hilarious exercise
in kitsch for the whole family. Kitted out in white suits and
headbands, with always-shirtless drummer Sebastian Thomson now
removing his shirt for intentionally comic effect, this is Trans Am
in high-school joke-band mode. Never one to express much more
artistic than a love of old arcade games, TA have now officially run
out of original ideas, and any emotions have been entirely elided.
With a studio built in their basement, and their prison-love of
prog-rock now officially outed on their last album Red Line,
all Trans Am have left is to recreate past pop styles with ironic
disposition and snide condescension. Which makes them the new Ween in
these books.